Basic Information : Synopsis : Characters : Thoughts : Evaluation : New Words : Book References : Good Quotes : Table of Contents : References
Basic Information:
Author: Philip Connors
Edition: Hardback from
Mountain View Public Library
Publisher: Ecco
ISBN: 0061859362 (ISBN13:
9780061859366)
Read: September 5, 2018
238 pages
Genre: Biography, Outdoor,
Autobiographical
Language Warning: Medium
Rated Overall:4 out of 5
History: 3 out of 5
Synopsis (Caution: Spoiler Alert-Jump to Thoughts):
Philip Connors was a fire
lookout in the Gila National Forest at the Apache
Peak
lookout. During his story he reviews his time up at his lookout for a
single summer, along with background for the lookout and the general
area, his thoughts, and a bit of understanding of fire. He talks
about the pace of life, the strains on his marriage and the
relationship he has with his dog Alice.
Cast of Characters:
Phillip Connors-his story
Mandijane-lookout who invites
him up to her lookout and suggests he takes a break from his work.
Alice-His dog
Martha-His wife
Thoughts:
Prologue
Connors goes through several
things about what makes a good fire lookout. He quotes Norman Maclean
as saying it is mostly soul. But then he elaborates with a list,
some of which may be universal:
-
Not blind, deaf, or mute-must be able to see fires, hear the radio, respond when called
-
Capability for extreme patience while waiting for smokes
-
One good arm to cut wood
-
Two good legs for hiking to a remote post
-
Ability to keep oneself amused
-
Tolerance for living in proximity to rodents
-
A touch of pyromania, though only of the non participatory variety.
I am not sure that all of
these are necessary. Such as the lookouts I staff, we can drive right
up to the tower. But then you need two good legs to climb the 20-80’
of steps to get into the cab. Also, we do have much of the comforts
of him-a refrig, propane stove and heater-what more do we need? I
really like that phrase about being a non-participatory pyromaniac.
To be solitary in such a
place [a lookout] and such a way is not to be alone. … Dignity and
singularity: these are among the blessings of solitude in a high
place. Why go up,
look for a fire which chances will not come, away from most contact?
I think Connors hits it on the head. You are alone, but in contact.
If it does not drive you crazy, it will fill your soul.
Interesting term, “fire-use
modules”. Wonder what it is. Even with my limited experience with
what I think are “fire-use modules”, we did some of what he
said-kept in contact with ground crews, looking for lightning, and in
general trying to be of help.
Purpose of the book: a
different view than what is on the TV screen about fires, more of a
view of fire and its place in nature.
April
On his trips up to the
lookout, he describes his practice from the ride to the trailhead to
walking the five miles up to the lookout. He says that occasional he
gets behind a tourist and learns to practice
the virtues of charity and patience.
He understands that it is a magnificent drive and should be enjoyed.
He describes the five miles he walks to his tower as the sweetest
commutes which
anybody could know. On the first time up, he finds someone has broken
into his cabin and has broken a key in the lock which gives access to
the cistern. His comment is more laid back than mine would be. He
recognizes that people
do strange things alone above 10,000 feet.
Fortunately there is snow on the ground which he melts for water. Not
sure, but the references I find to his lookout say that the peak is
7,714’.
Connors talks about how some
lookouts have large cabins with exterior catwalks. His is a 7’x7’
area, with little or no amenities. His tower is 50’ high; he also
enters through a trap door in the middle of the floor. This compares
with Delilah Lookout, one which I help to staff. We do have a catwalk
along with a larger cab area than he does. We also go up for 1-3 days
at a time versus his 10 day stretches. Also Delilah’s cab is 70’
up in the air, being Lemoore Naval Base’s old control tower. But
one thing which is different is that when we are at Delilah
overnight, we are up in the cab both to be a lookout and to sleep and
eat there. Connor got to go down to a building on the ground.
Connor notes he grew up
Catholic so he is equally comfortable both with the sacred and
swearing. Sounds sort of at opposite ends, well maybe not the
opposite but on different parts of the continuum. But there is a
relationship. The saints lived on the earth and were familiar with
earthly things. It is when they swore, they meant it. When most of us
swear, do we really mean to damn something? As long as we are on the
sacred, he notes that at times when he is in his tower, it feels like
a Muslim in their minaret calling the faithful to worship.
Lookouts are not a chatty
group, even us volunteers. We use the radio to go in-service and out;
to check in that we are OK; to report smokes or unusual
conditions-including weather. Then we take the do not speak unless
spoken to philosophy. On the other hand, a lookout tends to be
punctual. You have a set call in time and everybody in the forest
hears you. If you forget or are late, everybody knows it. But the
good part of being alone, nobody knows what state you are in-have you
had your morning coffee? Are you dressed? Woke up grumpy? As long as
you sound OK on the radio, nobody knows that you are barefoot. This
jives with the five things he is responsible for:
-
report the weather
-
answer the radio when called
-
relay messages-there are dead spots where crews cannot radio directly. Lookouts usually have the entire area covered with their radios
-
call in smokes
-
keep an eye on fire behavior, particularly if a crew is working.
There is a lookout who calls
himself a social hermit-meaning, he is content to be away from
everyone, but if someone happens to wander up, he is happy to talk
with them and then go back to being alone. Connors seems that way. He
says that the less normal he appears to others, the less they will
bother him for things he does not want to do.
He notes that the original
lookouts had to fend for themselves-get their own water from a spring
a half a mile away, pack in all of their own food and equipment. Then
be on watch for smoke. When they found a smoke, they had the
responsibility to put it out themselves-that meant saddling up their
horse and go over the fire with a shovel. And there was no days off.
The lookouts in our part of the Sierra did a similar thing, at least
that is the history which I have read.
Solitude can be unsettling,
especially coming in from a community setting, even a small town one.
Connors calls the time when the radio is not chattering a time of
holy silence.
That is the time which you can listen to the rhythms of the area
around you; listen to what your heart is saying; listen to God
speaking. Takes some getting adjusted to. There are also simple
rhythms you get into. Being in a wilderness area, he cannot use a
chain saw, so an axe and a handsaw is how he cuts wood. There is a
rhythm he picks up, not being interrupted by anything else.
The weather taking is pretty
much the same for him in New Mexico as for us in the Sierra. Cloud
cover, rain, lightning, temperature, wind speed and direction, and
relative humidity taken with a sling psychrometer.
And you also get to hear the
weather and staffing. Some of them are so fast or garbled or both
that you wonder did they work in a Greyhound bus station in a
previous life. Fortunately, I have figured out how to get the
information off of the Internet so I just need to verify what I have
is the same as what is being read. Connor had to listen and write.
Each outdoors profession tends
to say they get paid in spiritual terms rather than in material. The
pay to work outdoors will not make a person rich. But there are other
rewards. Park rangers, at least the backcountry ones, say they get
paid in sunsets. Connors points out that lookouts get paid to look at
trees. I have a tendency to say my payment for volunteering is to be
able to look at mountains.
An experience lookout can tell
from the smoke and location what probably caused the fire to start,
what it is burning, and how big it is. Before he radio’s in a
smoke, he takes his time to understand what he is seeing, but also to
calm himself rather than sound hysterical.
He also describes what the
crew does when they first come to the scene of a fire: they try to
determine if this is human or nature caused. If it is nature, then
the fire manager has some leeway in taking care of the first-let it
burn, suppress it, wait and see. If it is human caused, then put it
out.
Connors uses this to go
through a condensed history of fire fighting and suppression. This
reaches back into the philosophy of Pinchot and Roosevelt. Being
interested in preserving for future development, rather than for its
own sake. The argument about what to do with fire in the wild went to
three alternatives:
-
Do control burns, planned fires which mimic what Native Americans before Europeans came.
-
Settle the West, clear cutting forests
-
Fight fire, stomping it out.
The later won the day after
the Big Burn happened in Idaho and Montana.
May
There are times when Connors
laid back attitude rankles me. He talks about taking May Day off, but
still getting paid. I assume he did not tell anybody that he was not
working. As he points out earlier, all which you have to do is report
in and report the weather and nobody knows anything else about you.
Of course, if a fire breaks in your area, people will look and wonder
what you were doing. In my mind, he was not being honest with his
employer. Which you also wonder what else he was not honest with.
He says that all lookout have
diversions. And I would assume those who are more isolated do really
need a way to cope with the tedium of each day being the same. He
lists various authors-lookouts and what they did. He plays Frisbee
golf-a time honored activity among outdoors types.
That thing some people
called boredom, in the correct if elusive dosage, can be a form of
inoculation against itself.
I think Connors is saying as you experience boredom and grow to
tolerate it, it allows you to learn coping mechanisms for boredom.
Let's face it, being a fire lookout is not exciting every minute. In
our five years of volunteering in a lookout, we have been the first
call on one smoke and a confirmation on three. Definitely not high
excitement all the time.
Connors notes that when he is
home, he uses technology. But in the tower, he prefers not to-just
his radio and his binoculars. Yet we have found that at times having
an Internet connection is helpful as part of our duties. Such as
looking up coordinates of a smoke already reported or that days
weather, or the staffing of who is on in the forest.
Human contact here is the
more cherished for its rarity…
True. The lookout we usually staff, we had eight people over a three
day period. While my wife is with me, it is also something to look
for when we see someone else. I can only imagine being that far away
from people how seeing someone is an event.
There is a mutual envy between
hikers and lookouts. Both enjoy the outdoors-or why would they be
there? Each admires the others gig-the exertion of hiking and the
solitude of a lookout.
Connors says that the
prospect of death was one of the unspoken reasons we took these
trips… He is
speaking of a backpack trip. I do not go backpacking to face death,
but more to feel fully alive in the mountains which God has created.
Does Connors have a death wish? He does not really talk about this
statement. He does say that broken bones is an indication, evidence
that a brush with danger every now and then kept his senses alert.
Approaching disaster such as a twisted knee or sprained ankle makes
Connors feel giddy.
He and his friend, Black Larry
put together a list of ten items for traveling in the Black Range. A
couple of the worthwhile ones were:
-
Use maps as a rough general reference only; trails on maps may not exist on the ground (see McKinney and his thoughts that a trail may disappear from the map, but not from the earth)
-
Add 50% to mileage on trail signs-all of them lie.
-
Layover days are highly advised for anyone over the age of thirty-five
-
When in doubt as to your route, refrain from bowling up prematurely
He works through how a fire is
spotted, then plotted out on the firefinder. A real life fire. A good
description.
He describes his wife as
someone who is gracefully tolerated his desire for a season of
solitude.
And towers are well grounded.
Still there is a tension between the time when the strike happens and
the time the energy reaches the ground. During that time, you may
feel a jolt.
Connors gives brief histories
on a lot of things. One of them is how the fire jumpers/smoke jumpers
got started. Interesting. Enough so, I should follow up on this. He
references Norman Maclean’s book, Young
Men and Fire as
giving a history of an ill fated jump early on. The USFS has also
done a study about what happened at the Mann
Fire in
1949. Maclean is quoted that there are two principles illuminated by
that happened:
-
Little things can become big, sometimes very rapidly.
-
Generally, a first principle cannot be seen until after it has been written up as a tragedy
Connors comments that He
[Maclean]
was angling for immortality and with both of his books he achieved
it.
A list of things which a fire
lookout needs to be immune to:
-
pyrophobia-fear of fire
-
claustrophobia-fear of closed places
-
isolophobia-fear of being alone
-
acrophobia-fear of heights
-
bathmophobia-fear of slopes and steps
-
athazagoraphobia-fear of being forgotten or ignored
-
nyctophobia-fear of the night
-
agrizoophobia-fear of wild animals
-
ornithophobia-fear of birds
-
brontophobia-fear of thunder and lighting
-
anemophobia-fear of wind
-
hylophobia-fear of the forest
-
nephophobia-fear of the clouds
-
homichlophobia-fear of fog
-
ombrophobia-fear of rain
-
siderophobia-fear of stars
-
selenophobia-fear of the moon
This is after his relief
trainee decided that he had enough of the outdoor life after a few
days. Connors’ response is that he was going to go back to his
unfinished project
of learning how to think like a mountain.
June
A history of how wilderness
areas and prescribed burns evolved is talked about. From the days
where fires were fought ad hoc to more organized methods to the
realization that some fires are good for the forest’s growth.
Leopold was where Connors traces both the wilderness and prescribed
burns back to.
There is a description of
contrast in styles. Muir was an outsider, rallying public opinion,
swaying the masses. But Leopold was someone who knew the inner
workings of government and could change the process. Working together
they could be strong.
Connor says that being a
lookout becomes an
exercise in just how much watching I can stand. I’ve yet to find
the limit.
The author makes the point
that at least he does, and maybe all mankind does, crave a bit of
nature. WHen he discovers a little strip of meadow along an abandoned
train track, he finds this is his favor place in New York City. He
also notes that Nature will reclaim what is its.
Sometimes our failures open up
passages to life. Or in his terms, it allowed him to fail in more
interesting ways.
He thinks that unless we
figure out how to live with wildfires, then the future of wildfires
will be like nothing we have ever seen. You wonder what he would have
thought of the last couple of years. He talks about a fire called the
McKnight Fire which burnt 15,000 acres. Only the work of a thousand
people and rain stopped its advance-the rain being the more important
part.
He talks about the Native
Americans who occupied the land being driven out by settlers,
particularly soldiers from the Civil War. Chief Victorio.
He goes through the competing
interests of fire management:
-
Wildlife habitat
-
private land
-
smoke pollution
-
archaeological sites
-
weather
-
bureaucratic mandates
-
public relations
There is a cycle of weather
which governs how fire season progresses. Each area has its own
cycle. Such as in Gila, April-June is prime season with moisture
coming in starting in July. By the end of August lookouts go home.
While in the Sierra’s we go into service around Memorial Day and
things generally are calm until mid-July. Then we get a lot more
serious through the start of October when we hope we start getting a
bit of rain. But a lot of times that comes with lighting.
Which would you rather have
happen to you: you die and get devoured by birds and the carrion of
the wild? Or by worms eating you away in the dirt. Connors says by
the carrion because it is the natural cycle. I am thinking it does
not seem to matter.
I wonder, do all lookouts have
hummingbirds? Connors does. The ones I serve at does.
July
The description of his last
days at his tower for the season. He notices the changing of the
seasons. Flowers are more in bloom. This contrasts with his
melancholy of having to leave soon. Having spent my final day up in
the tower, I can see where you know that you will miss the stillness,
the solitude of being away from everybody. I am not sure he gets
across the depth of the feeling, especially for someone like him.
There is a quote from Jack
Kerouac where he says he does not want to be known as a drunken hero,
but he wants to be a
quiet saint living in a shack in solitary meditation of universal
mind…. It takes a
lot to be a quiet saint, one of these is a calling. Connors goes on
and tells how Kerouac’s time in a lookout was terrible for him.
There is an attraction to the quiet saint, but maybe it is not
everybody’s calling. Maybe it solitude is something which we need
to accept in smaller doses, If we are one of those people, maybe we
can work up to being able to be alone for long periods of time. My
experience is that in a lookout, you experience some aloneness, but
there is also the radio chatter so all is not quier.
Connors quotes Richard Manning
saying the most
destructive force in the American West is its commanding views,
because they foster the illusion that we command.
But from Connors view in the lookout, he got the opposite, and maybe
more Biblical view, sit
and be silent. This
is the similar instruction God gave to Elijah of stand
and be silent
before him. When we are on top of our mountain and looking around, we
can have the humanistic view of look what I have conquered. Or the
more spiritual tone of being quiet, being in awe of the created world
of which we seem so small.
He loves his lists. In this
case, he was being asked to make a guide for new lookouts. He already
had a somewhat facetious list for new lookouts:
-
Do not miss a chance to nap.
-
Leave the place better than you found it
-
Do not pee into the wind
-
Nobody know what you look like in the tower-go naked sometimes
-
Learn the meaning of riding the lightning
-
Always cut a good supply of wood for the coming year
-
Feed the hummers
-
Have a hobby you can practice at the lookout
-
Sleep outside, weather permitting
-
Love your neighbor as yourself-if no humans are present, then the wildlife.
Somewhat pithy: It’s
one thing to rail against government farm subsidies; it’s quite
another to suffer the humiliation of being
the subsidy. One
much rather does something by their freewill than being told to do
it.
Phrase: professional watcher
of mountains. I guess that makes me an ameatur watcher of mountains.
Connors brother died about ten
years before he wrote this book. He committed suicide by shooting
himself. Connors has written a book talking about this-All
the Wrong Places.
Connors felt he had to overcome a fear of guns. Not a fear about
shooting them, but a fear that he would end up like his
brother-shooting himself. He does not come up with a resolution, but
he is making progress by being around a gun.
Just the phrase he uses
introducing his wife on their anniversary on target practice at the
old TV set. Just the juxtaposition of celebrating the anniversary
while shooting.
Aldo Leopold: A
thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and
beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.
Another interesting contrast:
descendants of pioneers, being proud and harden as they are, but
scared of hearing wolves howling at night.
Not a religious person, but he
says he comes close to prayer when he tries to rescue a fawn and
nurse it back. But is told to leave it alone and let nature take its
course. He does not go whole hog into the prayer thing, but
describes it more as a hope. This is true throughout the book. He is
close to spiritual recognition, but does not care to go further.
August
Not a very strong ending. But
it does not sound like the end of his season is all that exciting,
more of a time of introspection.
He reverts back to his time as
a copywriter for the Wall
Street Journal. He
talks about coming into work one day and finding the section of New
York where is worked, “1 World Financial Blvd” as being vacant.
It was September 11, 2001. He talks about going through police lines
to arrive at his office and finding only the whirling of fans and
beeping of machines in his office. Then exiting. He ends this section
with a remembrance of ghastly
images searing themselves on my brain--images eight seasons of
wildfire have yet to put to rest.
I do not think he uses the
word vertiginous
correctly, causing vertigo, especially by being extremely high or
steep.I think he is trying to tying in his actions on Sept 11th with
virtue or as his telling, that his actions were not because of
virtue.
He thinks that not only
wildfires will increase as we progress, but also the fires which 9/11
ignites will continue to grow.
Evaluation:
Connors
describes one season in a fire lookout. You hear about the excitement
of spotting a smoke (where there's
smoke,
there is fire), but you also hear about the peculiar type of person
who is successful as a fire lookout. Because you are alone in the
tower for extended length of time, your mind ramblers, and Connors
story does a lot of that as well
At times there is excellent in
prose, like in all rambling, there is a lot of chaff to be sorted
through. He gives good background to how we got wilderness areas as
well as prescribed burns-enough that you want to dig in.
As someone who is a volunteer
fire lookout, I found that his story was one which I was interested
and he did not disappoint. I am not sure about someone who does not
have experience in a lookout, who well this would resonate.
New Words:
- catafalque (May): a decorated wooden framework supporting the coffin of a distinguished person during a funeral or while lying in state.
- Marsden matting (July): properly pierced (or perforated) steel planking (PSP), is standardized, perforated steel matting material originally developed by the United States at the Waterways Experiment Station shortly before World War II, primarily for the rapid construction of temporary runways and landing strips (also misspelled as Marsden matting). The nickname came from Marston, North Carolina, adjacent to Camp Mackall airfield where the material was first uses
- vertiginous (August): causing vertigo, especially by being extremely high or steep.
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The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac
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Desolation Angels by Jack Kerouac
-
River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean
-
A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
-
Lookout Journal by Gary Snyder
-
Journal of Forestry by Aldo Leopold
-
Usfs 1919: Ranger, the Cook, and a Hole in the Sky by Norman Maclean
-
Crime and Punishment by Frodor Dostoyevsky
-
So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell
-
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdich
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Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean
-
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
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In Search of an Elusive Enemy: The Victorio Campaign 1879-1880 by Kendall D. Gott
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Poets on the Peaks by John Suiter
-
The Town and the City by Jack Kerouac
-
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
-
Lonesome Traveler by Jack Kerouac
-
Book of Blues by Jack Kerouac
-
Rewilding the West: Restoration in a Prairie Landscape by Richard Manning
Good Quotes:
-
First Line: Until fifteen years ago, I thought fire lookouts had gone the way of itinerant cowboys, small-time gold prospectors, and other icons of the the old, wilder, West.
-
Last Line: This is my poem.
-
It doesn’t take much in the way of body and mind to be a lookout, …. It’s mostly soul. quoted from Norman Maclean.
-
To be solitary in such a place [a lookout] and such a way is not to be alone. … Dignity and singularity: these are among the blessings of solitude in a high place. Chp Prologue
-
Time spent being a lookout isn’t spent at all. Every day in a lookout is a day not subtracted from the sum of one’s life. Chp May
-
That thing some people called boredom, in the correct if elusive dosage, can be a form of inoculation against itself.. chp May
-
Even a mountain deserves a night alone now and then. Chp May
-
Frivolity and nonsense ought to be part of anyone’s pursuit of happiness…. Chp July
-
the most destructive force in the American West is its commanding views, because they foster the illusion that we command. Richard Manning in Rewilding the West: Restoration in a Prairie Landscape, chp Vision
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A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone. Henry David Thoreau
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Walking is the great adventure, the first meditation, a practice of heartiness and soul primary to humankind, Walking is the exact balance of spirit and humility. Out walking, one notices where there is good. Gary Snyder, book: The Practice of the Wild, essay:”The Etiquette of Freedom”
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If I could find the place I could find the poem. Richard Hugo, Collection: The Real West Marginal Way, poem: “Some Kind of Perfection”
Table of Contents:
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Prologue
-
April
-
May
-
June
-
July
-
August
References:
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Author's Web Site
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Wikipedia-Author
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Amazon-Book
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GoodReads-Book
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GoodReads-Author
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New York Times Review
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NPR Review
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LA Times review
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Paris Review, an interview
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Washington Post review
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Oregon Live review
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The Telegraph review
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AARP Review
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Read It Forward blog - Tattered Cover in Denver blog coordinator writes this one
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